DEVASTATING AND BEAUTIFUL – FRANCESCA WOODMAN ON BEING AN ANGEL

December 29, 2016

Only coming into prominence after the young and illusive beauty leapt to her tragic death at the age of 22 years old. Since her untimely departure, Francesca Woodman is considered one of the world’s foremost photographers. A modern feminine voice of her times, her oeuvre has been the subject of numerous in-depth studies, and her photographs continue to inspire generations of artists.

Francesca Woodman, On Being an Angel # 1, 1977

Growing up in a family of artists, Woodman began making photographs when she was 13 years old. Her work explores the human body in its natural naked form, she is both subject and object, appearing and disappearing, capturing herself and her friends as models in unusual and mysterious in-between-moments – often with a sense to provoke, yet not provocative at all.

Francesca Woodman, Self-Deceit # 1, 1978

“I was inventing a language for people to see the everyday things that I also see… and show them something different… Simply the other side.” – Francesca Woodman, last journal entry, January 19th, 1981.

Fiercely ambitious, she craved recognition and remained almost completely unknown throughout her short, intense life. When she died just nine years later in 1981, she left behind an extensive body of work, of which some eight hundred gelatin silver photographs had been preserved.

Moderna Museet will present one hundred photographs by Francesca Woodman, from early student work to her later experiments with large-format diazotypes as well as a unique video piece. Divided into five different periods: her early work, her years at the Rhode Island School of Design, in Italy, at MacDowell Colony, and finally in New York.